July 4, 2023

The Tub

The other day, I was faced with the daunting task of removing the tub from our upstairs bathroom.

Removing a tub wouldn’t normally be that big of a deal, but ours was a cast iron model from the 1960s that weighed about 500 lbs.

There was no way I was going to be able to lift this beast by myself, never mind wrestle it down the stairs in one piece.

So I consulted YouTube, and the cast iron tub removal experts all agreed:

Smash the tub into pieces using a sledgehammer and cart them down the stairs individually.

The shocking thing about all of these videos was 👏 how 👏 freaking 👏 hard they had to hit the tub to break it.

I mean, like, REEEEEEALLY hard.

We’re talking about a full-body, swinging-for-the-fences style effort.

With a sledgehammer.

At a quarter ton of iron.

In a bathroom.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well... a lot of things.

For example:

The nails on the other side of the wall could pop through the plaster (this didn’t happen)
The pot lights in the kitchen below the bathroom could fall out (this did happen)
The sledgehammer could ricochet off the tub into the toilet and shatter it (this didn’t happen)
I could forget to remove the plumbing connections before launching my attack and wreck the drain pipe (this did happen)

But most importantly, there were at least a dozen ways I could end up in the emergency room.

(My favorite was breathing in the glass-like porcelain shards that rain down after each hit. Yikes!)

So what’s an enterprising DIYer to do?

Take precautions!

Heavy knee-high boots
Long pants tucked into boots
Thick leather welding gloves that extend almost to the elbow
Long sleeve shirt tucked into gloves
Goggles
Face shield
Respirator
Ear plugs (sledgehammering iron is NOT the most pleasing sound)

Okay, so... why am I telling you about my tub?

Here’s the thing...

Any undertaking has some level of risk.

And a risk calculation consists of two factors:

The likelihood of a loss
The impact of a loss

Some undertakings are low/low, like deciding to wear a flowery shirt on your next Zoom call.

Some undertakings are high/low, like betting five bucks on the outcome of a limbo contest.

Some undertakings are low/high, like flying to Hawaii on a 747.

And some undertakings are high/high, like hang gliding over an active volcano.

It’s that last category that you really want to watch out for.

If the likelihood of a loss is high AND the impact of a loss is high, then it makes sense to invest resources in advance to mitigate the risk.

This is why some clients are more than happy to pay a premium for things like strategy sessions, advisory retainers, guarantees, insurance, and so on.

So ask yourself:

What risks do my ideal buyers perceive as high-likelihood AND high-impact?
What can I do to help mitigate the risk for them?

Yours,

—J